Hi,
A feature request I would like to see happen for 3D Toolpath Strategies is the ability to use “Allowance” from a surface in the direction of the surface normal. So, in the Advanced Allowance or in Gouge check we could have an option to stay away in the direction of the surface normal.
Here is an issue when you use Side Allowance on that end outside surface, the toolpath stays away in a manner that is not useful.
I think this would be a good feature to implement for V35.
Thank you
David.
Hey David,
I do not get that issue on my end. Could you please send the file in so that I can look at that specific file?
Hi Paul,
Thank you for looking at this and getting back to me. It is not so much an issue, it is looking for a better way in my opinion for an option to stay away from a selected surface on the “Parameters - Allowance - Advanced” page and in Gouge Check for Mill 3 Axis Wizards . In the above screen shots I put a “side allowance” of .02". Since edges of the surface I selected (red) shares the same edge as the open pocket, then the tool path stays away .02" from the open pocket wall, giving an undesired toolpath result. So, if I could stay away in the direction of the surface normal (badly circled in the screen shot, sorry), I believe the toolpath would not bulge away as shown in the screen shots.
Hope I have explain myself well.
Thanks again.
David,
I understand what you are requesting here, and I need to dig in a little further to see what could be done in this scenario. The Mill 3 Axis toolpaths are all calculated off triangle meshes (STL)… so the brep models are converted to mesh, and if the model isn’t water tight, its hard to guarantee that all that triangle normals of the mesh will match the face normal. If it is water tight then the normals will all be pointing out.
Regardless of that fun (my problem not yours)… the ability to add the separate surfaces to have varying allowances was the major idea behind what you are requesting. I see in your example the purpose of what you are asking for, because it offsets around the whole “face” and not just in the one direction.
Is it really just when open shapes are being cut, you want to be able to keep the tool from curving around the edges?
Yes, for open shapes and where you would have intersecting surfaces where you may want to stay away from one surface but not intersecting surfaces that connect.
If I wanted to stay away from that end surface (red), but not stay away from the 2 short end outer walls that intersect and connect to the same surface I would get the same skewing away toolpath.
Thank you.
